A/B testing always seems to be one of those email marketing tactics that gets away from us. It takes a little more work to do, but in the end it can reap huge rewards. If A/B testing isn't something that you've experimented with, it's time that you do so.

There are several components you can play with when it comes to A/B testing, but it starts with the subject line. And guess what... it happens to be one of the easiest components! To get your creative juices flowing, here are a few examples of simple tweaks you can make to a subject line to A/B test against your standard email subject lines.

If you're in the inbound marketing world, chances are that you've at least heard of A/B testing, even if you've not implemented it.

If you've not familiar with it, it's a way of testing multiple variations of a design, call to action (CTA), or phrase in order to see which one performs better. Sounds simple, right? It is, really. And yet a lot of companies don't take advantage of it for whatever reason.

When done effectively, it can become an important part of refining your inbound marketing strategy. After all, research makes you a better marketer. Think of it as your secret weapon (of sorts), except it's not the kind of weapon that you have to conceal - or the kind that you'd want to break out in any sort of fight.

When to use A/B testing

A/B testing most commonly fails because the test itself has unclear goals, so you've got to know what you're testing.